Extreme learning

One of the drawbacks with acquiring a PhD is that you “lose” around five years of work experience, because you are busy studying. It’s the same with all forms of education a.k.a. sacrificing the present for the future. I felt this very strongly during my first years as an acoustician. My friends who went straight to a private sector employment had several years head start on me, so by the time I was finally ready to start working for real, I was far behind, and I was frustrated by the feeling that colleagues assumed that my experience would be great and not comparable to a fresh recruit. Of course, when you have a good education/toolkit in your mind, it is only a matter of time before you catch up and take the lead, and in my case, I reckon it took around ten years in total (including PhD studies). During my insane quest to learn the drums, I realized something similar the other day with regards to music.

Education, MusicRikard ÖqvistNovember 20, 2023drums, music, learning, habits, education, school, focusComment

Is learning painful?

I used to think that you can acquire knowledge in two ways. For the most part, you learn something new – a building block – that can be added to your existing framework. Just like an additional piece of a puzzle. But sometimes you would come across new knowledge that was incompatible with your existing framework, and consequently you had to tear down a small or big part of your explanation model of the world and replace it with an improved explanation model. The first part is effortless, and the second part is somewhat painful. In rare cases, you can learn something new that flips your entire puzzle over and forces you to start anew. No wonder there is a saying that “ignorance is bliss”.

Philosophy, EducationRikard ÖqvistMarch 7, 2023learning, habits, knowledge, addictionComment

What computer is best for an acoustican?

Back in 2019 I bought my first tablet computer, a fully-specced HP Elite X2. I had counted on doing a lot of business trips and when you’re flying a lot, a tablet is hard to beat. Well, shortly thereafter most travel plans were cancelled for a couple of years, so I ended up with a very slow desktop solution instead. It didn’t take long before the tablet ended up as a part of my travel kit and I replaced it with a proper desktop workstation. However, I just moved into a new (secondary) office and once again I need to go back to the laptop+docking station path. In this post I will list some of my thoughts about what might be valuable for me in my work as an acoustician.

Computer, Acoustics, EducationRikard ÖqvistFebruary 28, 2023workstation, laptop, tablet, gpu, egpu, VR, 3DComment

Red light is awesome

A couple of years ago, I was very interested in stargazing. One important and useful lesson that I learned when carrying around large telescopes in very dark places, was that red light is your best friend. When you spend time in darkness, eventually your eyes will adjust their ability to see in darkness. If you are exposed to strong light from e.g., a flashlight, headlight or device screen, you will instantly overload your sensitive eyes and consequentially wait for a while until your eyes adjust themselves back. Needless to say, it is thus crucial to adapt your eyes when stargazing – and to keep them that way until you are done. But how to orient oneself in pitch black darkness? By using red light!

Photography, Diary, EducationRikard ÖqvistFebruary 6, 2023rgb, physics, light, stargazing, telescope, nightComment

Elon Musk was right

Elon musk recently told Tesla Employees to get back to the office for at least 40 hours per week, or “pretend to work somewhere else”. I noted that there was a significant backlash to this statement in the comments sections on LinkedIn for example. Clearly, many people do not agree with Musk and appreciate the choice to work from home or the office and where you consider yourself most productive. It is a question that evoke a lot of emotions. Personally, I think Musk is correct. I also think it is useful to evaluate this question and compare it to education.

Acoustics, Education, EngineeringRikard ÖqvistJune 14, 2022workfromhome, work, elon muskComment

Work as hard as you can on one thing and see what happens

Yesterday me and my wife listened to Dr Jordan Peterson’s lecture in Stockholm, with the same topic as the title of this blog post. As a person who is extremely high in openness, I find this especially interesting. People with this personality trait, creative people, can often have a problem that they keep shifting from one thing to the next without ever finishing anything. I can recognize myself in this to a certain degree. But I also know that I am not too extreme in this regard either. Raphael, a friend of mine might very well be the most creative person I have met. And he told me something that is probably only is visible to someone in the 99,9th percentile in creativity (i.e. way higher than me, even if I should be in the 99th percentile…). “Rikard, you are an artist, but you are also very practical.”

Education, Acoustics, EngineeringRikard ÖqvistJune 6, 2022teaching, focus, career, art, music, universityComment

Distance education in front of an audience

During the Covid years of 2020 and 2021 I went all in on distance education and experimented wildly with live-streaming and recording of lectures. But this spring I am back in the classroom again, and it has been very interesting to apply the lessons learned and the content created. In 2021 I held a few lectures in Building Physics on the topic of moisture, which I also recorded. It was the first time I lectured on the topic and my full focus was simply to keep my nose above the water line and get through the lectures without making to big a fool of myself. The students were very clear in their feedback and most wished for more calculation examples and less lectures. Consequently, this year, I thought about how to approach this and decided to replace all the scheduled lectures with calculation sessions instead. I am now extremely curious to see what the students´ judgment will be.

Education, ComputerRikard ÖqvistMay 23, 2022education, online education, distance learning, technology, school, lecturingComment

The unintentional podcaster

Your past self is one of, or perhaps the most important friend you’ll ever have. I have recently started my annual course in Building physics which consists of Acoustics and Moisture transport. By now, I have enough experience to simply “wing” the acoustics part and get away with it, but Moisture theory is something completely different. Being a teacher in a topic you do not fully master is one of the scariest things I can think of. And now I have four lectures is Moisture transport approaching fast. Here, my past self has got my back covered, because last year when I did the lectures for the first time, I recorded all of it. It turned out extremely useful for rehearsal purposes.

EducationRikard ÖqvistMay 9, 2022building physics, education, podcasts, recording, teachingComment

Back to normal?

Campus is open again for business. In a month from now I start the 2022 edition of my building physics course. It feels a bit strange to return to the physical classroom. I haven’t done a real lecture since early 2020. They say that if you don’t use it, you lose it. We will see in a month whether there’s some truth to that. I have been very active posting vlogs every day since 2019 and I have a feeling that the experience gained it will come in very handy now. Such a weird feeling, I have practiced so hard in front of the camera - around 1000 videos. It will be very interesting to see how that translates into a physical room.

EducationRikard ÖqvistApril 4, 2022zoom, distance learning, education, elearning, classroom, lecturesComment

A beginner’s mind with an advanced toolkit

Yesterday I listened to a Podcast with Bret Weinstein (DarkHorse) on the topic of how to think like a Nobel Prize winner. The key takeaway is the same title is this blog post. The message resonated very strongly with me because I have used a similar approach for the past decade in various endeavors. The beginner sees a lot of options but has very few tools to use. The expert on the other hand, tends to see few solutions to a given problem, and has many different tools to solve them. To take the best of both worlds would indeed be a lot of options and many ways to approach the problem.

Education, PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistNovember 9, 2021mentorship, growth, Nobel prize, musicComment

Unlimited willpower

I have heard that a two-year-old can have the willpower to hold their breath until they literally turn blue. Today I witnessed something similar with my two-year-old son. Since last week, we now go on daily dog walks together, and he insists to handle one of our two labradors even though it is twice as heavy as himself. I have never personally witnessed determination or willpower even close to what I have now seen with my son. The dog is strong and pulls him in the wrong direction, he drops the leash, and he loses his balance and falls. A lot. And yet, he will NEVER let me take the leash from him. He shall do it his way, alone.

Habits, EducationRikard ÖqvistJuly 5, 2021determination, focus, will, willpower, kids, parentingComment

Work faster!

How can you get more things done is less time? There’s a viral video with Arnold Schwarzenegger where one of his key points is to simply do things faster. I really like this video. The funniest part is when he tells people who complain that they don’t have time because they need to get enough sleep, to just “Sleep fasta” [Austrian accent]. I am not claiming that sleep is overrated, but Arnie’s got a very good point here. Don’t waste time on things that does not matter. I tried it out this weekend when correcting exams.

EducationRikard ÖqvistJune 21, 2021exams, students, speed, grading, university, teacherComment

Speed reading

When I came across the concept “speed reading” for the first time a couple of years ago, it kind of blew my mind. I have been reading books wrong my whole life. I have always read the book as if a voice in my head spoke the words to me. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it does take a lot of time to read a book. Especially technical literature. I don’t know why it came as a surprise to me, but it turns our that it is no problem at all to simply read faster. A lot faster.

Education, HabitsRikard ÖqvistJune 14, 2021reading, speed reading, learning, book, audiobook, listeningComment

Never stop learning

Throughout May, I have been teaching Building Physics in the course at Umeå University with the same name. The three topics included in the course are acoustics, heat transfer and moisture transfer. I know acoustics by heart and can teach it on autopilot by now. Heat transfer and Moisture transfer on the other hand, is a completely different story. I did not know anything about those topics before this course. And here I am now, teaching the topics that were as new to me as to the students. Can this actually work? Teaching and lecturing in a topic that you are not familiar with is about as scary as it gets.

Education, EngineeringRikard ÖqvistMay 24, 2021building physics, teaching, education, growth, studyComment

Upgrading my live streaming setup with a system camera and a studio microphone

My YouTube channel has seen some serious growth lately and I realized that it is time to up the ante regarding the production value. Up until now I have been using a Logitech BRIO webcam, and a Jabra Speak conference phone. They get the job done fine, but the camera struggles with White balance and focus and the microphone picks up a ton of room reverberation. So, I pulled the trigger and invested in a proper mirrorless camera with real optics and a spring-loaded studio arm to mount a large membrane microphone. This gave a huge boost in production quality and my online meetings have never looked and sounded this good. I am also proud that I kept going with basic equipment for almost 1½ years before upgrading. My past self had a tendency to get stuck in gear acquisition syndrome instead of producing content. You should always let the content come first, and then invest.

Acoustics, Engineering, EducationRikard ÖqvistFebruary 13, 2021livestreaming, online education, camera, audio, recording, video, DSLR, studioComment

How to learn any song

Back in 2012, a friend of mine asked me if I would like to come along to a concert with Tommy Emmanuel. I had never heard about the guy, but apparently, he was some kind of world class acoustic guitarist that was touring in my hometown Umeå. I said sure, it is always fun to expand one’s musical horizon. I went to the concert with zero expectations and it turned out to be one of the best things I have experienced in my life. Tommy Emmanuel is an absolute genius and a treasure of a human being. The things he creates with his guitar does not resemble anything else I have ever heard. He is the literal definition of a one-man band. In his own words: “When I was a kid, I wanted to be in show business. Now, I just want to be in the happiness business. I make music, and you get happy. That's a good job.” I don’t know of anyone who does a better job at that, than Tommy Emmanuel.

Music, EducationRikard ÖqvistJanuary 30, 2021tommy emmanuel, guitar, acoustic guitar, learning, practice, consistency, habits, concertComment

Questions are a sign of quality

When I give a lecture or do a presentation, a bullet-proof way to know whether I did a good job or not, is if I get questions afterwards. Take note of this the next time you listen to an awesome presentation. When the lecture ends, that is where the real conversation starts. The best lectures get the most questions, and the inferior presentations get few or no questions at all. If the audience could not understand a single word of what you were talking about, how are they supposed to ask a question then? And on the contrary, if they clearly understood your message, asking questions will be simple.

EducationRikard ÖqvistJanuary 16, 2021lecturing, presentation, powerpoint, communication, experience, diversity, educationComment

Acoustics and Men’s style

Earlier this year, my wife introduced me to Bailey Sarian’s Youtube channel. She produces a program called “Mystery and Makeup”, where she talks about True crime and Makeup. She is insanely popular with 3,4 million subscribers and I can understand why, even if I have only watched one episode. Her passion is apparent and shines through like a bright light. She is indeed a great storyteller. The episodes start out with Bailey completely without makeup and then she tells a story about some famous true crime while putting on a professional makeup. About 30 minutes later she finishes the story and by then the makeup is finished. Bailey Sarian is perhaps one of the strangest combinations I have come across and it works. She is the perfect example of when two seemingly unrelated ideas are synthesized and produce something new and greater than the sum of the parts. She planted a seed in me. If I were to do something similar on Youtube, what would it look like?

Acoustics, Education, Engineering, Habits, StyleRikard ÖqvistDecember 19, 2020acoustics, elearning, education, synthesis, ideas, youtube, style Comments

Should you diversify or focus?

For the past 216 days I have created a painting/sketch every day. For the first months I used a timer set at 60 seconds, no more, no less. In the beginning I tried out some different techniques and tools, and I quickly settled with Autodesk Sketchbook on the iPad pro. Simplicity was the key. You can just fire up the iPad, grab the Apple pencil, choose an object to draw and then you do it. Indeed, extremely fast, and simple. But there is a drawback: When you are travelling, the iPad is too cumbersome. That’s why I went to Panduro and bought a small artist sketchbook, some graphite pens, an eraser and a sharpener. As an artist, my kit is perhaps as portable as it gets, considering the infinite possibilities on offer. I was planning to use it only when travelling and go back to my iPad when I got home. As it turns out, I haven’t used my iPad for weeks now. I stayed with the pen and paper.

Education, Habits, PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistDecember 5, 2020learning, painting, sketching, art, graphite, apple, ipad, growth, focus, openness, creativity, schoolComment

What teachers get wrong about e-learning

I read some excellent posts and comments this week by Jakob Heidbrink, where he explains the friction he has encountered with the sudden shift to e-learning. More specifically, he described the agonizing process of recording his lectures and how he spent eleven hours to record a 60-minute lecture. Heidbrink is correct in his analysis regarding the required time. I usually say that it takes 10X the time to record and post process a lecture (video editing), compared to just giving it in the classroom. I suspect most teachers that have tried this route will agree with the observation. However, it sounds to me like Heidbrink suffers from the “perfection equals paralysis” condition (also common among engineers). The primary reason for the 10X increase in time he explains, is that he re-records over and over because he stumbles upon words, scratch his nose, cough, and so on – basically just being human. He claims that when a teacher does this in the classroom it is acceptable, but on a recorded lecture such mistakes are not allowed. I disagree and here’s my proposed solution.